The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1887-09-08
say. If there be any thing mors pitiabls

And yet there arc good women who are
Indifferent in regard to their husbands
duty in this respect; and there are those
positively hostile, as though life insur-
ance subjected a man to some fatality.
There is in Brooklyn to-day very poor
woman keeping small candy shop, who
vehemently opposed the insurance of her
husbands life, and when application had
been made for policy of $4,000, she frus-
trated it. She would never have a docu-
ment in the house that implied it was posi-
BILE for her husband ever to die. One day,
in quick revolution of machinery, his life
was instantly dashed out. What is the Sc
quel? She is, with annoying tug, making
the half of a miserable living. Her two
children have been taken away from her in
order that they may be clothed and
schooled, and her life is to be a prolonged
hardship.
o man, before forty-eight hours have
passed away, appear at the desk of some
of our great life insurance companies, have
the stethescope of the physician put to
your heart and lungs, and by the seal Of
some honest company decree that your
children shall not be subjected to the
humiliation of financial struggle in the
days Of your demise.
But must ask the men engaged in life
insurance business whether they feel the inn
portance of their trust, and charge them I
must that they need divine grace to help
them in their work. In this day, when
there are so many rivalries in your line Of
business, you will be tempted to overstate
the amount of assets and the extent of the
surplus, and you will be tempted to abuse
the franchise of the company and make up
the deficit of the year by adding some
of the receipts of another year; and you
will be tempted to send out mean, anony-
nous circulars derogatory to other compa-
mics, forgetful of the fact that anonymous
communication means only two things
the cowardice of the author and the ineffi-
cheney of the police in allowing such
thing to be dated any where save inside of
a penitentiary. Under the mighty press
ure many have gone down, and you will
follow them if you have too much conf
dence in yourself, and do not appeal to the
Lord for positive help.
But if any Of you belong to that mis-
creant class of people who without any
financial ability, organize themselves into
what they call a life insurance company,
with a pretended capital of 100000
or 100000, then vote yourself into
the lucrative position, and then take
all the premiums for yourself, and
then, at the approach of the State super
intendent, drop all into the hands of those
life insurance undertakers whose business
it is to gather up the remains of defunct
organizations and bury them in their own
vault-then, say, you had better get out
of the business, and disgorge the widows
houses Won have swallowed
But my word is to all those who are
legitimately engaged in the business:
You ought to be better than other men,
not only because of the responsibilities
that rest upon you, but becase the truth is
ever confronting you that your stay on
earth is uncertain, and your life matter
of few days or years. Do not those
black-edged letters that come into your
Office make you think? Does not the doc
tors certificate on the death claim give
you a thrill? Your periodicals., your
advertisements, and even the litho-
graphy of your policies warn
you that you are mortal? According to
your own showing the chances that you
will die this year are at least two per cent.
Are you prepared for the tremendous exc
igency? The most condemned man in the
judgment day will be the unprepared lifs
insurance man, for the simple reason that
his whole business was connected with
human exit, and he can not say:
81 did not think"
His whole business was to think on that
one thing. Oh. my brother, get insured
for eternity. In consideration of what
Christ has done in your behalf, have the in
denture this day made out, signed and
sealed with the red seal of the cross.
But have words of encouragement and
comfort for those of my hearers who are
engaged in the fire insurance business.
You are ordained by God to stand between
us and the most raging element of nature.
We are indebted to you for what the Ma
tional Board of Underwriters and the Con-
vention of Chiefs of the Fire Department.
have effected through your suggestions,
and through your encouragement. We
are indebted to you for what you have eff
fected in the construction of buildings,
and in the change in the habits of our
cities; so that by scientific principles or
derby companies extinguish the fire, in
stead of the old-time riots which used
to extinguish the citizens. And
we are indebted to you for the
successful demands you have made for the
repeal of unjust laws-for the battle you
have waged against incendiarism and ar
son-for the fatal blow you have given to
to the theory that corporations have no
souls, by the cheerfulness and promptitude
with which you have met losses, from
which you might have escaped through
the technicality of the law.
The scientific Hitchcocks, and Sillimans,
and Mitchells of the world have united
with the sacred writers to make US believe
that there is coming a confagration, to
sweep across the earth, compared with
which that of Chicago in 1871, and that of
Boston in 1872, and that of New York in 1896
were mere nothings. Brooklyn on fire!
New York on firel Charleston on fire!
San Francisco on fire! Canton on firei st.
Petersburgh on fire! Paris on fire! Lon.
don on fire! the Andes on fire! the Ape
mines on fire! the Himalayas on fire! What
will be peculiar about the day will be that
the water with which we put our great
fires will itself take fame; and the Missis-
sippi, and the Ohio, and the st. Lawrence,
and Lake Erie, and the Atlantic and
Pacific oceans, and tumbling Niagara,
shall with red tongues lick the heavens.
The geological heats of the center of the
world will burn out toward the circumfer-
ence, and the heats of the outside will